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How Not To Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms
This thoroughly updated new edition of How Not to Say What You Mean celebrates 20 years of R. W. Holder's popular and successful dictionary of euphemisms, offering a delightful collection of jocular and evasive expressions for sex, death, murder, crime, prison, and much more. Here are almost five thousand euphemistic expressions listed in alphabetical order, ranging from well-known favorites such as "push up the daisies," "fly-by-night," "red light district," "take to the cleaners," "get lucky," and "five-fingered discount," to less amusing expressions from the bureaucratic and military world such as "restructuring," "collateral damage," and "extrajudicial killing." For each word or expression, Holder includes examples from real authors, along with entertaining explanations of the words origins and meaning. Thus we learn that "bite the bullet" (to make a difficult decision) comes from the fact that soldiers, being flogged, were once given a bullet to bite down on, and "Stool Pigeon" (an informant) comes from the practice of tying a pigeon to a stool to lure other pigeons to capture. New to this edition are over 250 new entries and fourteen introductory articles on major themes in euphemistic language, such as business, sex, death, and the human body. The book includes an extensive thematic index which groups words together under topics such as Age, Bankruptcy, Bribery, Copulation, Sexual Variations, Drunkenness, Erections and Orgasms, Farting, Funerals, Killing and Suicide, Low Intelligence, Politics, Prison, and Warfare. From "suck the monkey" to "surgical strike," here is a wonderful collection of colorful words that allow us to avoid life's unpleasantries as we add spice and humor to our everyday speech. "A must for tiptoeing around the truth. It is also rollicking reading for those who love words and the not always forthright uses to which they are put." --Chicago Sun-Times.
Price: $9.54
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The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms
Until now, no dictionary has ever attempted to record the fascinating and often raunchy inventory of English sexual euphemisms Jordan Tate has confronted this task with gusto and the results are nothing short of gratifying. The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms is a hilarious, unabashed, at times shocking compilation of every sexual euphemism you’ve ever heard—and many more you haven’t. Would you be offended if someone called you a “back door burglar”? Ever heard of a “five against one”? Would you rather do the “Little Dutch Boy” or the “Little Red Riding Hood”? Along with both a literal and a sexual definition of each euphemism, this dictionary also has photographs, and, of course, an example of each term used in a sentence—all in an effort to irreverently entertain and inform. A perfect guilty pleasure for anyone who ever got a thrill looking up dirty words in the dictionary as a kid, the Contemporary Dictionary is also a must-have reference tool for those just plain too shy to ask what a “pearl necklace” really is. .
Price: $3.89
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The Superior Person's Field Guide to Deceitful, Deceptive and Downright Dangerous Language
In his Superior Person's Book of Words and its two sequels, the incorrigible Peter Bowler did his best to spread confusion throughout the English-speaking world by encouraging his trusting readers to use obscure, sometimes preposterous, words for no other purpose than to impress (or conveniently befuddle) their peers. But he recently experienced a "Road to Damascus" conversion. Confronted by the damage being inflicted on his beloved Mother Tongue by the pretentious, euphemistic, obfuscatory, and self-aggrandizing cant now running amok in our military, corporate, and academic arenas, he is mounting a one-man campaign to return us to sanity. The Superior Person's Field Guide is a call for the return to simple, straightforward words that say what they mean and mean what they say. Most of us know that "downsizing" means that you're about to be fired, but have you ever heard its business-speak cousins "offshoreable" or "cash-flow episode"? With his customary wit and clear-sightedness, Bowler cuts a swath through the thickets of popular jargon, casting daylight on such linguistic deformities as "interrogate with prejudice" (that is, torture) and "unforeseen geological event" (a mining disaster). Impatient with euphemism, he examines ugly specimens forced into bloom in the interests of political correctness "waitperson," "developmentally challenged" designed to help the squeamish avoid direct confrontation with the simple facts of sex and disability. Here are circumlocutions that make the disagreeable seem agreeable, the unacceptable acceptable, and here is Peter Bowler, as always, trying to set the record, and the English language, straight..
Price: $4.68
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Slang and Euphemism, 3rd revised ed.
Here are the most up-to-date curses, insults, ethnic slurs, sexual slang, metaphors, drug talk, street slang, college lingo, cant, colloquialisms, and other outlandish words. You'll find it all in this comprehensive, unabashed, and definitive reference for anyone who "wants a good knowledge of contemporary cussing." (William Safire, The New York Times Magazine).
Price: $3.89
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A Dictionary of Euphemisms: How Not To Say What You Mean (Oxford Paperback Reference)
Now in paperback, this brand new edition of A Dictionary of Euphemisms: How Not To Say What You Mean is still as lively a guide to the language of evasion, hypocrisy, prudery, and deceit as you could wish for. Packed full of the old favourites, such as 'early bath' or 'push up the daisies', as well as euphemisms from modern times, like 'human sacrifice', 'coffee-housing', and 'tuft-hunter'. Definitions include examples from literature and the press, along with historical explanations of origins, and now obsolete euphemisms like 'leaping house', 'nightingale' are signposted as such. And to prove that the use of euphemisms is not just a British speciality, there is widespread coverage of American euphemisms too: 'English' (pertaining to sexual deviance), 'watermelon' (an indication of pregnancy)..
Price: $7.00
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The Evasion-English Dictionary
"Maggie Balistreri takes dead aim at the Like, Whatever faction of English speakers and splatters them with her paint ball. Clear-minded grammar wins out in the end. Bravo." — Garrison KeillorWhat if you fired your shrink and hired a proofreader? More than just a dictionary of euphemisms by a hip young linguist, The Evasion-English Dictionary is a merciless translation of the banalities of contemporary speech. It's also scathingly funny. For example, asks Balisteri, what if you substituted the word "you" for the phrase "the relationship"—as in the sentence, "There seem to be a lot of problems with the relationship." Or the word "because" for the word "but" . . . as in the sentence, "They drive me crazy but my parents are very involved in my life." Entertaining as it is, however, the E.E.D. is also a thought-provoking and insightful look into the twists and turns of modern English usage—a smart and useful, albeit hysterical, earwitness account of verbal mishaps and manipulations that's destined to become a classic with language lovers and a useful reference tool on the desk of writers everywhere. "The brilliant writing, lucid thinking, and authentic passion in these pages make The Evasion-English Dictionary one of the most readable and incisive exposures of linguistic camouflage I have ever encountered.—Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English "A stimulating collection that will sharpen yours ears and stretch your mind."—Thomas Szasz, author of The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary.
Price: $2.91
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